I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving! We went to Anthony’s aunt’s house. It was a really nice meal and it was nice to see his family. We have had the past few days off of work and I have been cooking! I’m so excited to share what I have been making. It’s so nice to just have time to cook more elaborate things that I don’t usually have time for. We have been keeping ourselves pretty busy though. We were supposed to go pick out a Christmas tree today but Anthony isn’t feeling well. Personally, I think he’s just trying to get out of getting a tree.

Anthony’s family on his mother’s side is Italian, so usually when we go over to their house she cooks meatballs and sauce. It is the most amazing thing ever. I did learn how to cook her meatballs, but she does make her sauce slightly different than we do. Anthony took her recipe and made it his own I guess. It definitely is one of my favorite things to cook. You can use it to make SO much, so I suggest making a large batch and then freezing it. We always have some sauce in our freezer. You can also use up whatever meat you have lying around in this. We usually use ground beef or sausage. This batch was made with sausage. I prefer the sausage, so that is generally what I make it with.

Meat Sauce

Yields – 8 servings

Prep time – 15 minutes

Cook time – 1 hour

Ingredients

4 sausage links

1 small yellow onion

4 cloves of garlic

1 TBSP olive oil

3 6 oz cans of tomato paste

2 24 oz cans of diced tomatoes

1 1/2 cups of water

1 TBSP oregano

1 bay leaf

1 TSP salt

1 TSP black pepper

1 TSP basil

1 TSP parsley

Directions

In a large pot over medium heat add 1 TBSP of olive oil and the sausage links. While the sausage is cooking, slice it into small bite sized pieces.

Once the sausage is cooked add the onion and garlic to the pot. Cook until the onion is clear.

Add the tomato paste, diced tomatoes, water and all the spices into the pot. Mix everything together.

Bring the sauce to a boil, then lower the heat.

Stir occasionally so the bottom of the sauce doesn’t burn.

After about 30 minutes, taste the sauce and add more spices depending on how you like the sauce to taste.

Allow to simmer for about 1 hour, until the spices flavors are fully incorporated into the tomatoes.